Rwanda Keen to Learn about Israel

An answer to prayers! That’s what you might call my visit to Rwanda. Two sisters from a Christian women’s congregation have been praying for years that the message about Israel could be spread into the churches in the African country Rwanda. This country has been suffering tremendously following the tragic genocide in 1994 that cost over a million lives.

“I am so happy with this good message about Israel. That’s what we need to hear in our church and in our country”

Suddenly we received an invitation to speak about Israel at the annual gathering of the Presbyterian Church of Rwanda. This gathering is an annual four-day event, attended by over 3,000 church members, 140 church pastors and 80 evangelists. A wonderful opportunity to reach so many Christians with the message about God’s everlasting faithfulness to Israel and the Jewish people. “I am so happy with this good message about Israel. That’s what we need to hear in our church and in our country”, the President of the Presbyterian Church, Rev Dr Pascal Bataringaya told the audience afterwards.

Rev Dr Pascal Bataringay and Rev Cornelis kant

The Rwandese Christians were eager to learn how to put their relationship with Israel into practice. Some pastors were a little reluctant at first out of fear of a new form of idolatry, because they see some of their countrymen going to Israel and coming back from Israel with anointing oil, water, and sand from the Holy Land, and scattering it over their fields in the hope of a blessed harvest. I thanked them for expressing this reticence because it gave me the opportunity to explain that this is not what we stand for. We do not bless Israel from a prosperity perspective to be blessed ourselves. We want to bless Israel because God loves Israel and keeps His promises and covenants.

They were also eager to learn about similarities and differences between the Holocaust genocide of the Jews in Nazi Germany and the Rwandese genocide of the Tutsi tribe in 1994. Hate propaganda, instigated by the government, played an important role in both tragedies. I told them how dangerous the current negative and often untrue propaganda against Israel is in our time.

Let us pray for these new future developments in Rwanda.More

During these four days many new pastors were ordained, and we enjoyed wonderful African music. We spoke about building up a new partnership between the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda and Christians for Israel International in order that many church members may be inspired and encouraged by information and Bible studies about Israel. Let us pray for these new future developments in Rwanda.

Various executive pastors and guests from other Rwandan churches and from abroad